The 2018 Program Consisted of the Following Baltimore History Evenings:
January 18, 2018
Baltimore and Her Sisters: Row House Cities of the World
Presented by Charles B. Duff
President, Jubilee Baltimore, Inc.; Executive Director, Midtown Development, Inc.; Past President, Baltimore Architecture Foundation
The row house cities of the world form a great family of cities on both sides of the Atlantic. Baltimore is part of this family, along with Amsterdam, London, Dublin, Boston, and New York. Learn how this kind of city arose, and experience some of the wonderful places that the builders of row house cities—including including Baltimore--have created.
February 15, 2018
Public Health: From East Baltimore to the World and Back
Presented by Karen Kruse Thomas
Historian of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, author of Health and Humanity: A History of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 1935–1985.
Famed for improving health worldwide, the work of what is now the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has had admirers and detractors in its own East Baltimore neighborhood.
March 15, 2018
Lauraville v. Morgan College: Fighting Housing Segregation and Jim Crow in Early 20th Century Baltimore
Presented by Steven K. Ragsdale
Baltimore Historian and Healthcare & Education Consultant.
Early in the 20th century, Morgan College, like other “downtown” colleges made plans to move to a spacious “suburban” site. But Baltimore’s turn-of –the-century segregation laws, a white-hot political climate on race, and economic fears of black encroachment into white neighborhoods led to a four-year legal, legislative, and public relations battle.
April 19, 2018
Doctors Stealing Corpses: Grave Robberies in Baltimore
The Grace Darin Memorial Lecture
Presented by Antero Pietila
Pietila's forthcoming The Ghost of Johns Hopkins, interprets Baltimore history through founder's life and his institutional legacy.
From the 1820s through the 1890s, Baltimore was a grave robbing capital, supplying stolen cadavers to medical schools near and far. The University of Maryland was a leading practitioner, but the new Johns Hopkins Medical School had to postpone scheduled dissections three times for the want of corpses. A solution then was found…
May 17, 2018
We Bring Thee Our Laurels Whatever They Be: Student-Led Protest at Morgan State
Presented by Simone R. Barrett
Robert M. Bell Center for Civil Rights in Education, Morgan State University; adjunct professor, Coppin State University
The national student movement of the 1960s grew out of Baltimore's student movements of the 1930s, 40s and 50s. The Baltimore City Chapter of the NACCP, the City-Wide Youth Forum, Morgan State College NAACP, and the Civic Interest Group led and shaped the “long Civil Rights Movement.”
June 21, 2018
On Middle Ground: The Jews of Baltimore
Presented by Deborah R. Weiner
Co-author, On Middle Ground: A History of the Jews of Baltimore (The Johns Hopkins University Press, Spring, 2018)
Baltimore’s unique status as both a border city and an immigrant port profoundly shaped the historical experience of its Jewish population. Exploring how Jews negotiated their place in this environment sheds light on one of the city’s largest ethnic groups and also provides fresh a perspective on Baltimore’s development.
